Thursday, March 20, 2008

Darrell Hair, who umpired in Nairobi last year, will be back in the big league after being reinstated by the ICC...

Darrell Hair has admitted he can be "stand-offish" and has vowed to improve his communication skills after being reinstated as a Test and one-day international umpire. Hair is back after being demoted following his role in the forfeited Pakistan-England Test in 2006, but he believes it is time to "move on".

"Well it caused me a lot of stress, I suppose it caused a lot of people some stress along the way," Hair told Sydney radio 2KY. "The laws now have been changed to take those decisions out of the hands of the umpires and I fully support the way that that's going to happen in future. So, it's time to move on.

The ICC ruled Hair's "rehabilitation", which included a course at Sydney University, has been completed and he remains contracted for another 12 months. "Every day in life you like to pick up something and move forward," he said. "So I won't say my whole attitude to umpiring has changed but I think I have picked up a few things that are going to be very helpful to me in the future.

"Probably just ... having a broader understanding of what everybody else is thinking and the old communication issue of making sure that what you say and what you want is understood by the other people. I've always been a little bit ... stand-offish in that I've always preferred to let them play the game themselves and only get involved when things go overboard but maybe there's a case to be made for a little bit more work in that area."

The ICC will keep Hair away from games involving Pakistan, who are upset with the official's elevation. "I've got no comment on anyone else's reaction really," he said. "I'm just going to look after my own patch and go out there and umpire the matches that I'm appointed to and do that to the best of my ability, which is what I've always done."

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Did u know?

Mohammad Yousuf, in successive ODI innings against Zimbabwe in 2002, scored 141*, 76*, 100* and 88, thereby scoring a world-record 405 runs between dismissals. The previous record of 400 belonged to Lance Klusener, who scored 103*, 35*, 13* and 35* against New Zealand, and then 12*, 52*, 48*, 52* and 46* in the World Cup in England, before finally being dismissed for 4.